Here's how dedicated Alabama's two U.S. senators are to solving the nation's immigration problems: Both Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions voted against even debating the issue.

The vote Tuesday wasn't a vote to enact something. It wasn't a vote to endorse any particular approach to immigration reform. It wasn't a ratification of an ideology or perspective.

It was simply a vote to begin debate on immigration reform. And Sessions and Shelby voted no. Nada. No way, Jose.

They didn't want even to debate an issue that is paramount to whether their Republican Party has a future, a chance to survive in a nation where demographics are changing so quickly and where many of the negative views of the GOP are being left far behind.

Lots of Republicans understand they have much work to do. The vote to go ahead and debate the Gang of Eight's immigration reform bill was 82-15. Shelby and Sessions were in the Gang of 15.

Oh, that'll play well here, in Alabama, which passed the meanest, most overreaching, ugliest anti-immigrant law in the country. A law that has been picked apart by the federal courts, costing no telling how much of our scarce financial and manpower resources.

Yes, once again, we dared defend our wrongs.

As the immigration reform debate moves forward in the Senate over the next several weeks, there will be amendments and changes and many votes on many ideas. There will be chances to make improvements in the bill, to do right by those undocumented residents already here, and to better secure our borders as well.

But Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions have already taken themselves out of the game. They've already shown their hands. If they don't want to even debate the issue, nothing the Senate comes up with will gain their support. On immigration reform, they no longer matter.

And so once again, on an issue important to our nation's future, Alabama is irrelevant.

Joey Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a community engagement specialist for AL.com and The Birmingham News. Reach him at jkennedy@al.com.